Ever seen this happen?

Last Sat night, Fbox was supposed to open for Harriet Tubman at the Tribeca Y. And because winged trickster Mercury was still in retrograde last week, everybody was confused about the time for the show. We all thought Fbox went on at 8 and HT at 9. Turned out that doors were at 8, and the bands at 9 and 10. Tubman couldn't play at 10 because their bass player, Melvin Gibbs, had to be in a cab at 10:15 to get to the airport to fly to Korea for a tour with Arto Lindsay. So it was quickly decided that Tubman would open for Flutterbox.

Now we ask you, have you ever seen the opening act follow the headliner AND get an encore? We haven't found anybody yet, but it happened on May 8 at the Tribeca Y.

And much love and thanks to Emily Rubin and her Loads Of Prose series for a fantastic gig at the Avenue A Laundromat in the East Village. Great fun. Hope you were there.

As If That's A Good Thing

Janine, wearing her collagist's hat, found this illustration for Magnavox televisions in a dated House Beautiful. It boasts that the company's newest black & white model has "no flutter"– AS IF THAT'S A GOOD THING.

Come out to the Ave A Laundromat in the East Village tonight and get your flutter on.

As writ in The Wire

Are you familiar with The Wire, the rarefied British music magazine for adventurers in modern music? We have to admit we were not. Then Hal Willner called Janine to ask if Flutterbox "wanted a bit of an ego boost." Certainly. He proceeded to explain, by way of introduction, that the magazine is pretty much his bible, but warned that to get into it is a "deeply humbling experience" since they write exclusively about music "we know nothing about."

Turns out that on page 8o of the March issue, there's an informed and entirely enthusiastic review of the Tuli Kupferberg benefit show at St. Ann's Warehouse in January. In the last paragraph of Byron Coley's review, Hal continued, it says,

"The vocal/bass duo Flutterbox did a JAWDROPPINGLY GORGEOUS rendition of Morning Morning."

"Could you repeat that?" Janine said, same as Neill said when he heard (adding, "Am I dreaming this?").

Days later, while Janine was out in Vancouver for the Willner Olympics, Hal showed her the actual print issue (just procured this week in New York at Other Music and not yet online). She told a few of the other players about The Wire mention, including the Glaswegian amazer, Alasdair Roberts, who is on the cover. The routine response was little short of astonishment – not that anyone would say our music is jaw-droppingly gorgeous, because it is, but because The Wire said so. Apparently, The Wire doesn't exactly favor a gushing tone. This rapturous squib is a very big deal. Thank you, People of The Wire! We will never forget that the British don't hyphenate "jaw-dropping."

Neill always says, when asked why we play so quietly (so much of the time), "I like to be able to hear the sound of their jaws dropping." Byron Coley of The Wire has ears good enough to hear it too. Ed Sanders said to Janine that night, "We always knew that was our `beautiful' song, but I never heard it really be beautiful before!"

Richard Gehr, over at The Village Voice, went with "luminous."

Philip Glass, Harry Smith: From the Tuli Kupferberg Benefit Concert

I shot this from backstage at the Tuli Kupferberg benefit at St. Ann's Warehouse. The pianist is Philip Glass and the films are by Harry Smith. Sumptuous.

Impeach the Supreme Court 5

We don't think only about music. Some days, we hardly think about music at all, so enraged are we by the cruel machinations of American government. Like you, we'd been focused on the chicanery in the US Congress. But now the Supreme Court has our attention again. Corporations are NOT representative of We The People and must not be extended further rights of personhood.

It's important to let people know they're not alone in their fury. Start with a free bumper sticker to advertise your discontent!

What makes a hit song? Blegvad draws you a picture

Nick Hill's new online music project, Radio Free Songs, is up and running. Alphabetically, Peter Blegvad is the first up and that is as Nature intended. Hail Peter! Thanks for the diagram. We'll use it.

Neill Furio: New old photographs

These were taken across the sea, in Denmark, where Neill has spent much of the past several years, writing, producing, teaching "Songwriting and Song-wronging"), recording and performing. These photos never seem to turn up on a google image search, but we like them and thought we'd put them on our site too. Dig that pinkie action.